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Introduction to Linux - A Hands on Guide

This guide was created as an overview of the Linux Operating System, geared toward new users as an exploration tour and getting started guide, with exercises at the end of each chapter.
For more advanced trainees it can be a desktop reference, and a collection of the base knowledge needed to proceed with system and network administration. This book contains many real life examples derived from the author's experience as a Linux system and network administrator, trainer and consultant. They hope these examples will help you to get a better understanding of the Linux system and that you feel encouraged to try out things on your own.

"IPCop is a powerful, open source, Linux based firewall distribution for primarily Small Office Or Home (SOHO) networks, although it can be used in larger networks. It provides most of the features that you would expect a modern firewall to have, and what is most important is that it sets this all up for you in a highly automated and simplified way.
This book is an easy introduction to this popular application. After introducing and explaining the foundations of firewalling and networking and why they're important, the book moves on to cover using IPCop, from installing it, through configuring it, to more advanced features, such as configuring IPCop to work as an IDS, VPN and using it for bandwidth management. While providing necessary theoretical background, the book takes a practical approach, presenting sample configurations for home users, small businesses, and large businesses. The book contains plenty of illustrative examples."

It is described as an easy to read book with lots of information about each part of firewalling used in the book, and it lives up to these claims beautifully!&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;It is obviously written by knowledgeable users as they describe their preferred methods of configuration compared to less effective methods, which gives readers a much wider understanding of what's good practice and what's not so good. In the security area, good practices make for good security, so these skills can be used in a much wider area.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;The first chapter is a detailed overview of TCP/IP networking, a must for anyone fiddling with firewalls. It's easy to follow, contains a lot of info and doesn't repeat itself.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;The authors spend a lot of time discussing why certain choices are necessary, which goes beyond just describing the IPCop distro and actually educates the reader. Pitfalls are explained after discussing the basic procedures, which places them in a perfect context.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;The chapter on customising IPCop goes into detail about popular proxies, filters and monitors available from the IPCop website modules section. The following are covered - monit, p3scan, ProxySMTP, HAVP, privoxy, frox, spamassassin, ClamAV, renattach, rules du jour and P3PMail.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;The table of contents is available at http://www.packtpub.com/page/Configuring_IPCop_Firewalls_Table_of_Contents and a sample chapter on designing a network to deploy IPCop in at http://www.packtpub.com/files/IPCop_SampleChapter.pdf&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;I recommend this book to anyone choosing to use IPCop. It will save a lot of time installing and configuring the system. IPCop's own help files assume you know what you are doing and don't go near the easy to read detail this book contains. It is a complete discussion not only about IPCop itself but how to make it work effectively. 230 well written and very enjoyable pages. Enjoy!